Why SMB Underwriting Is Hard

Welcome back to our Engineering the SMB Capital Stack, sponsored by our friends at Fundbox.

In this four-part series, we’re exploring small businesses, small business lending, and the forces shaping how small businesses access capital. I’m joined by Prashant Fuloria, CEO of Fundbox, as cohost.

In Episodes 1 and 2, we explored the state of small business lending and how capital actually reaches small businesses. 

In Episode 3, we move to the heart of the SMB lending stack: underwriting (the core of how lenders evaluate and manage risk).

Joining us is longtime SMB lending leader, Bernardo Martinez, currently at SoFi. Bernardo is the executive leading SoFi’s SMB efforts (in addition to other initiatives like SoFi at Work, which is an employer-branded program to help companies support their talent through financial products).

Highlights include:

• Why analog ops and missing data have always constrained SMB underwriting, and how overdue digitization and vSaaS are finally changing the picture.

• What a true 360 degree view looks like when you blend bank transactions, payment processing, invoicing, and ledger data all together (and even flavor with non-financial signals like repeat visits, foot traffic, and even satellite imagery).
  

• Where machine learning and generative AI actually belong in SMB lending, from stitching together CRM, accounting, banking, and marketing data to delivering CFO-style guidance that saves owners time (and lowers probability of default).
  

The next decade in small business finance isn’t about originating loans more quickly. The real unlock will be how well you feed the data back into the business itself (the better that business runs, the safer the loan becomes). 

That means translating raw signals into value added services that help owners strategize growth, spot risks early, and above all, save time!  Our data and tools are finally catching up to the needs of SMBs, which makes this an exciting moment for anyone building products for them.

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This episode was brought to you by Fundbox. 

As a leading capital infrastructure provider behind the digital SMB economy, Fundbox is focused on enabling platforms to embed financial tools directly into their user experiences. Learn more here: https://bit.ly/4o1cWVG

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Follow Prashant:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/fuloria/

Follow Bernardo:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernardo-martinez-639293/

Learn more about Fundbox here: https://bit.ly/4o1cWVG